"AC" == Alan Cox <alan@cymru.net> writes:AC> Its an inevitability of an efficient interface. In the SMP case its veryAC> very hard not to have different structures. To start with your hardwareAC> is in places quite different. We could always use the SMP build but thatAC> would punish 99.5% or so of the folks who just happen to have only oneAC> CPU.

After hacking a driver for the Jorway 73a SCSI-CAMAC controler underSolaris 2.4, I'd agree totally. There is a tremendous amount ofoverhead in assuming that the driver need be MT safe. Solaris makesthings have to happen this way for a sound reason but it makes thedriver 10X heavier and more complex than we need it for an SS10 (thatthey won't let me run Linux on 8-(). I can see benefits as well forenforcing such a scheme even in monoprocessor situations, but one cancode to those benefits without having that much complexity.

On the other hand, if a company wants to support Linux, then who am I tocomplain. They should keep in mind what hardware base their code willrun on. Maby push an MT safe (heavy but works everywhere) and a non MTsafe (smaller and lighter) driver.